As we measure our lives in better detail, will our behaviors improve?

Every year we, as humans, are quantifying ourselves more and more. With new technologies, especially mobile phones, we’re keeping more exacting records of our work, sleep, exercises, diets and moods.

Much of these efforts are tracked by the blog Quantified Self. And MIT’s Technology Review recently had an overview of the movement, which is somewhat odd:

In one breakout session at the May conference, a group earnestly discussed the results of their experiments. Standing on one leg for eight minutes a day helped one person sleep. Eating butter helped another think better. One had logged every line of computer code he’d written for a decade. But there is a far more pragmatic side to the movement, too. Across the building from the butter eater, another group, made up mostly of entrepreneurs, discussed business models for selling self-tracking apps and devices.

The goals these people have vary, but start from a foundation of wanting to know themselves better and branch out to sleeping, learning and working better to being happier. Although the first adopters may seem a tad odd, I think this clearly is where most people are headed as more of this data can be obtained wirelessly from the phone in your pocket.

What effect might this have on society?

There’s some evidence that feedback loops, in which people get real-time information about their own activities, can have a powerful influence on behavior. Wired published a thoughtful article on the phenomenon a couple of days ago.

As an example it cited the use of dynamic speed display signs, which provide a bright, roadside display of your current speed. In 2003 the California city of Garden Grove tried everything to slow down cars in school zones: bright new speed limit signs, more police ticketing and more.

To no effect.

So they put up the dynamic signs that provided a huge digital readout announcing “Your Speed.” It seemed a counter-intuitive strategy.

The signs were curious in a few ways. For one thing, they didn’t tell drivers anything they didn’t already know—there is, after all, a speedometer in every car. If a motorist wanted to know their speed, a glance at the dashboard would do it. For another thing, the signs used radar, which decades earlier had appeared on American roads as a talisman technology, reserved for police officers only. Now Garden Grove had scattered radar sensors along the side of the road like traffic cones. And the Your Speed signs came with no punitive follow-up—no police officer standing by ready to write a ticket. This defied decades of law-enforcement dogma, which held that most people obey speed limits only if they face some clear negative consequence for exceeding them.

But it worked.

The results fascinated and delighted the city officials. In the vicinity of the schools where the dynamic displays were installed, drivers slowed an average of 14 percent. Not only that, at three schools the average speed dipped below the posted speed limit. Since this experiment, Garden Grove has installed 10 more driver feedback signs. “Frankly, it’s hard to get people to slow down,” says Dan Candelaria, Garden Grove’s traffic engineer. “But these encourage people to do the right thing.”

What does this mean? The lesson, scientists believe, is that giving people information about their actions in real time, and then providing them a chance to change those actions, nudges them them toward better behaviors. It’s a hopeful thought as we continue to move into an era in which our behaviors are increasingly quantified in real time.

17 Responses

I am a fan of the speed display signs. In fact, I use them to help me make sure my speedometer is reading properly. I think that, in some cases, people are so pre-occupied that they don’t realize how fast they are going (I know this happens to me – I glance at my speedometer and go “WHA!?”) These signs help with a friendly reminder, and I am very conscientious about making sure my speed is at, or below, the posted limit.

Now, if there was just something like this (not involving cameras and civil citations) that they could do with respect to red lights…

Those speed signs only work because they are few and far between and are usually placed in areas where you really need to watch your speed (e.g., school zones). Once they become ubiquitous, people stop paying attention to them.

Not sure that something similar would work for red lights; too many people think that yellow means “floor it!”

It’s also worth mentioning one of the other behaviors I see when driving past these things: the guy who’s going the fastest in a group is usually the one that slows down. Drivers who aren’t going as fast (but still over the speed limit) don’t seem to change speeds. (I regularly drive past a couple in Poway.)

As for the red lights … I really hate the red light cameras. It turns out they don’t reduce the accident rate, just change them to rear-end collisions. (There’s a long rant here, that leads to the conclusion “cities that install these things are only after the revenue.”)

I suppose some obsessive personalities are doing this, but perhaps you should have said “some” are doing it rather than lumping everyone into the “we” category. I don’t own a mobile phone, and don’t even wear a watch. I eat what and when I like, sleep when I get sleepy, have no exercise schedule, etc., etc. And I’m a perfectly healthy, well adjusted 67 year old man who lives in the country. I have no desire or intention to follow the herd.

Great comments today Eric We are not computers….our brains cannot keep up with the endless data…..I am overwhelmed at work……..thus at home my wife is the techie, she keeps up with the computer, router, digital tv’s dish washer etc…..while I take the dog for a walk….under our beautiful oak trees

There is one on Gessner just south of Memorial. The few times I drive through there I always feel compelled to slow down a bit though am not completely sure why. I think at least part of it is having it displayed to the other drivers, like I don’t want to be the bad rule-breaking hooligan. Another part fears it is tied into another system where there is a speed-camera, or an officer waiting to pull me over.

I also agree if they become ubiquitous I would most likely start to ignore them.

Interestingly, California has also used similar signs that actually tok photos of speeding cars and sent fines to the vehicle owners. I heard a story (friend of a friend) of a man visiting his brother in Cali. He borrowed his brother’s Corvette one evening, and passed one such sign shortly after entering the freeway. Being bored, he decided to see how high he could get the reading on the sign as he merged off the entrance ramp. Afte three or four passes well above the speed limit, he went on his way.

His brother got the tickets dropped because he convinced the judge that no one would pass the same sign four times in roughly ten minutes.

So, like the polygamist comment above, the signs definitely do not work for certain personality types.

Turns out I’m a member of the self-quant community. It started with training for marathons, which seems to require keeping track of one’s gradually increasing weekly mileage to make sure you can handle the distance. Over time, I added in daily calories consumed/calories expended and vitamins/minerals taken.

All this was good training for having a common but frequently poorly treated chronic health condition. Many are the doctors who demean women who report symptoms that sounds vague to them. Those docs have a rougher time dismissing data, though.